A TikToker documented the long-term nightmare she endured as a result of getting a henna tattoo in a post that has over 6.1 million views as of Sunday.
Laura (@lauraa_aura) begins her TikTok slideshow with a photo of a henna tattoo on each finger of her hand. The text overlay on the first picture shows a grim foreboding of what is to come: “How did this beautiful henna design turned into the worst disaster of my life,” it reads.
It appears that she had the temporary tattoo superficially inked onto her skin while she was on vacation. She uses her caption to issue a warning to globetrotters who may be thinking of getting their bodies decorated with some henna designs. “If you love going on holiday watch this!!” she wrote.
The second picture in her slideshow isn’t as festive—she holds out the index finger on her left hand and another text reads, “After 24 hours my finger became very itchy,” but it still doesn’t look like there’s anything wrong with her hand. It isn’t overly puffy and there doesn’t seem to be any severe discoloration.
That all changed once the clip transitioned to the third picture which presented an image that could be featured in a horror film: Laura’s fingers are noticeably puffier, and more alarmingly, the henna seems to have burned itself into her skin turning her tattoo designs into blisters on her hand.
“Guess who’s having an allergic reaction to this,” she adds in another overlay of the clip.
Unfortunately, the fourth slide doesn’t present an image that suggests her hand was getting any better. In fact, she says that the issue only exacerbated with time, writing, “I then arrived back In the UK and it was just getting worst.”
By the fifth picture in her montage, the blisters on her fingers have begun to bubble off of the original henna application points. “My fingers began to feel very hot and I couldn’t bend my index finger anymore,” she writes.
In the following slide, Laura says that she attempted to seek medical attention for her hand on two separate occasions, but was notified both times that the best thing for her to do was leave it alone and let the reaction happen.
She says that the only advice healthcare workers gave her was to consistently ice her hand and that it would eventually get better with time. However, it seemed that their suggestions weren’t all too helpful, as Laura took another photo of her hand 12 days later—it looked much worse. The blisters were significantly more swollen and she said that she was struggling to use her hand.
Finally, a doctor took a closer look at her hand and they were shocked at the condition of Laura’s appendage. “The doctor in A&E said I’ve never seen anything like this in my 30 years of being a doctor,” she writes.
She also adds that she was going to get contacted by the “burns unit” regarding her henna-tattooed hand. They end up “burning all the blisters” on her hand, she says.
Thankfully, the next picture appears to show progress: the skin on her hand appeared to be healing, but not without meticulous care.
“I was seeing a nurse every 3 days to check the dressing,” the TikToker writes. It was followed by an even more encouraging photo—her middle and index fingers were wrapped in white bandages and the swelling seemed to have all but dissipated.
“But it finally slowly started to heal,” her caption over the photo reads.
In the last picture of her slide, Laura shows her completely healed hand with freshly painted fingernails, although she says the scars lasted two years.
While Laura didn’t specify the medical condition she suffered from, judging from the following description on Dermnetz, it seems she was afflicted with “black henna dermatitis.” The medical resource listed a litany of various symptoms, all of which appear to coincide with what Laura documented in her TikTok slideshow: “Black henna dermatitis usually presents as an acute eczematous reaction with erythema, severe itching and a burning sensation, oedema, vesicles and oozing. The morphology may also be lichenoid (scaly), pustular or blistering. The rash may generalise, extending well beyond the initial tattoo pattern.”
While “natural henna is generally safe for the skin,” there are some brands that sell substances that mix in particular additives, and it’s these additives, according to the National Institutes of Health, that are primarily responsible for the allergic reactions some individuals, like Laura, have to henna tattoos: “Certain additives to henna preparations may cause an allergic adverse skin reaction. The most notorious agent is PPD. The classic reaction to PPD is consistent with Type IV delayed-type hypersensitivity reaction, however, an acute life-threatening Type I reaction has also been described.”
One viewer spoke to the point as they speculated that someone probably used cheap henna on her while she was on vacation. “Natural henna is the best!” they wrote. “These other fake ones contain PPD a chemical used in hair dye which a lot of people are allergic to.”
“I cannot believe the hospital told you to go home,” another wrote. “I’m shocked.”
Another viewer speculated as to how much worse of a situation she could’ve found herself in, writing, “Thank goodness u didn’t do like a whole arm of henna.”
This was a nightmare scenario entertained by another user. “Wow that’s scary. Some people do henna on their entire hand both front and back,” they said. “Imagine if you had done that.”
The Daily Dot has reached out to Laura via email for further comment.
